The growth of direct and indirect competition in the telecommunications sector has rather inevitably impacted revenue growth rates and the profitability margin of traditional operators worldwide. Universally, telecommunication entities have found it difficult to monetize over-the-top services, value-added services and cloud as they try to move away from the traditional connectivity and capacity business. In relation to South America, the potential to monetize 'Big Data' has got Telco's in the continent enthusiastic about the topic and what 'Big Data' technology can bring to business.
Telco's in Latin America are currently embarking on the initial phase of the project in relation to 'Big Data' - focusing their attention firstly on optimizing infrastructure - then they intent to transform their business with predictive analytics, next-generation applications and advanced use cases. In addition to this, companies are also rethinking and re-evaluating their organizational structure and the portfolio it offers clients. Some have developed special units to specifically define roadmaps focused on their digital and innovation strategies in an attempt to re-invent business operations and ultimately to lead them to be in a position to enable new services.
Research has found that capital expenditure or 'Big Data' telecommunications services in Latin America market reached $633.3 million in 2016. The investment is projected to reach $1.779 billion in 2022, led by countries such as Brazil and Mexico.
Some of the main priorities for the telco's will undoubtedly be on improving customer experience satisfaction based on deeper customer understanding, prediction of issues based on extensive and more accurate network analysis, and revenue creation based on identified sales opportunities in the sector. Whether or not the companies can achieve these targets is yet to be seen.
However, it's clear that as the digital transformation continues to evolve - 'Big Data' will become a new revenue source for Telco's who are preparing to take advantage of new business opportunities. Data from users, services, networks, locations and management sources could be monetized through product promotion, targeted advertisement- new sales opportunities - quality of experience and network optimization. The question for telco's is not only how to implement the technology, but how to effectively set the value it will extract.